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Report: Tablets Replacing PC News Consumption For Many

A new report on tablet ownership and usage, from the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism, finds that 11 percent of US adults own tablets (mostly iPads) and 77 percent use them daily. Beyond this 53 percent of tablet owners consume news on these devices on a daily basis.

The report focuses primarily on news consumption on tablets. However we know from numerous other studies that tablet owners are also highly engaged shoppers as well.

Tablet owners are more educated, affluent and employed than the general US population. And they’re using tablets to access news instead of their PCs, TVs and print (to a lesser degree). Pew says that people are with their tablets roughly 95 minutes daily. Separate studies have found that tablet usage spikes in the evening and on weekends.

The study surveyed 1,159 tablet users by telephone in the summer and early fall of this year.

Here are some additional findings:

For 90 percent of tablet news consumers (the 53 percent) it is the preferred news-reading medium, replacing the PC, TV and print. The PC is the primary “loser” in the substitution of tablets for other media

30 percent spend more time consuming news than before their tablets

Only 14 percent have paid for news content specifically on tablets, while a second group (23 percent) have combined print-digital subscriptions. Accordingly paying subscribers for access to news on tablets “may be closer to a third” of tablet owners

Browser vs. apps: 40 percent get news principally through a browser; 31 percent use both browser and apps; 21 percent get news mainly through apps

While news-app consumers are the minority (21 percent), they’re more engaged and more satisfied than browser-news consumers. They are also”power users” who consume more news content than others

About The Author

Greg Sterling is a Contributing Editor at Search Engine Land. He writes a personal blog, Screenwerk, about connecting the dots between digital media and real-world consumer behavior. He is also VP of Strategy and Insights for the Local Search Association. Follow him on Twitter or find him at Google+.